Feb. 10, 2023

Any way you add it up, Dr. Joe Rush has a true knack for numbers. As a child in St. Petersburg, the third of 12 siblings was a grade-school math whiz. Years later, as an honors math major at the University of Florida, he placed first in the challenging Putnam Mathematical Competition three straight years — placing 95th in the nation as a senior.

And the math portion of his medical school entrance exam? Forget about it — Rush placed in the top 99.8-99.9 percentile.

“Numbers have always clicked for me, but it’s more than that,” says the Gainesville area resident. “I like to ask people, ‘What’s the definition of mathematics?’ Most of them answer. ‘It’s the study of numbers.’ I say, ‘No, that’s the arithmetic.’ Mathematics is the study of relationships.”

In a way, numbers and relationships say a lot about Rush and his powerful impact on WUSF Public Media — including the fortune he earned with a fellow physician by creating the first online medical resource for doctors in the early 1990s.

His generosity to USF’s public radio station can be measured in impressive numbers, indeed — last year offering a sizable dollar-for-dollar match and doing it again this past December to support Classical WSMR and WUSF 89.7 operating funds. And his giving relationship with the station has also included a large lump sum to support an ongoing flow of interns as they learn the electronic news business and go on to successful careers in the field.

“It really means a lot to me to help the next generation of journalists,” he says. “I support a handful of public radio stations and programs. And I really like what WUSF is doing, and how closely it’s tied to the university and their journalism program. I occasionally get to meet the interns but mostly I just want to support their internships.”

He does that, and more, says WUSF General Manager JoAnn Urofsky: “His philanthropic support has provided the means for us to pay for our student news interns. In turn, they receive an invaluable, hands-on experience that opens doors to rewarding careers. In fact, many of our interns parlay their experience into jobs at NPR and NPR stations and news operations around the U.S. Needless to say, we’re very grateful to Dr. Rush.”

So are the many students who have benefited from the impactful internship program thanks to their rent and living costs being covered by his giving — and the door-opening opportunities that have resulted. Jorgelina Manna-Rea, for instance, graduated in May from USF as a communications major after two semesters as a WUSF intern. She now works as a full-time producer in Washington, D.C. for NPR’s 1A, a live, two-hour radio talk show about pressing issues in the country, after working on the NPR show Here & Now.

“Every producer is assigned an hour per week to produce,” explains the north Florida native, “so I pitch topics for the show and if they’re approved, I research potential guests, pre-interview them to make sure they can add the insight I’m looking for, and make sure they’re comfortable talking live.”

Manna-Rea is deeply grateful for the support provided by Dr. Rush for the program, allowing interns to be paid. “I got to meet him, and he’s such an intelligent, impressive man,” she recalls.  “You get smarter just by talking to him!”

Leda Alvim met Dr. Rush at the same event as her good friend, Manna-Rea, and feels equally indebted. “The support he’s given WUSF interns is incredible and so much appreciated,” she says. The internship has led Alvim to New York City, first working with ABC News and now in a year-long fellowship with Bloomberg News, gaining  hands-on experience with various teams that produce the global network’s financial programming.

Both Alvim and Manna-Rea, each of whom worked as students for USF’s student-run newspaper, The Oracle, express thanks for the guidance and feedback from WUSF News Director Mary Shedden and Assistant News Director and Intern Coordinator Mark Schreiner, who enriched their broadcast knowledge and set them up for success in the work world.

“I’m gaining experience in the different platforms of journalism — TV, radio and print — and WUSF allowed me to take this important step,” said Alvim, a Brazil native who relocated to Orlando during high school with her family. “I’ve learned how important it is to be able to tell stories across multiple platforms. It makes you a valuable asset on any team. And I’m so fortunate that WUSF prepared me for this.”

• • •

Growing up, Rush never listened much to radio or TV. He and his siblings were encouraged by their parents to spend their free time outside playing. If the TV was on, their dad, a radiologist, and mom, who had worked for appliance-manufacturer Amana before raising the kids, tuned in to public television programming.

In fact, he earned high school credit taking history classes with an older sister offered on public television. That gave him time in his school schedule to take a class in small engine mechanics, learning to rebuild and repair lawn mowers, which came in handy in the lawn mowing business he and several brothers ran.

During his college years, Rush developed a fondness for public radio. He’d often study in his dorm room and found that classical music on the radio provided a soothing, helpful soundtrack to his homework. “It entertained my right brain while my left brain focused on the reading assignments,” he said.

His passion for the objective, fact-based nature of math would eventually parallel his philanthropic commitment to public radio and fact-based news coverage. The catalyst proved to be the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, brokered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Rush was home at his parents’ house in the Jungle Prada section of west St. Petersburg, and recalls finding the network TV coverage lacking.

“It was horribly superficial and totally focused on the video as opposed to the news content,” he said. “They showed the plane taxiing up, a red carpet, people walking down the stairs from the plane, and some very trivial details. By comparison, on NPR that night, they provided in-depth interviews from all the involved parties and provided valuable context — it was news with meat on the bones.”

Rush also recalls hearing the public media pledge drives when he listened to classical music on the radio in college. Though he didn’t have much if any money to donate at the time, he vowed that if he were ever in position to do so, he would become a public radio supporter. And as fate would have it, he would eventually have more financial wherewithal than he ever imagined — thanks to an innovation he co-created just before the Internet burst on the scene in a big way.

• • •

Rush had planned to pursue a career in mathematics, but wasn’t sure what type of job he would land. So he followed the path of his UF roommate into industrial engineering and fell in love with the subject. A professor took note of his proficiency and enthusiasm, and that paved the way to graduate school and an assistantship. Upon earning his MA, Rush took a job at the ECI Division of E-Systems in St. Petersburg, across the street from where he grew up playing baseball in Azalea Little League.

He worked as a programmer on some of the fastest computers in the world, back in the days of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, an experimental computer network that was a forerunner to the internet), excelling thanks to his vast math skills. Within two years, his salary skyrocketed, but Rush longed for new challenges. He pondered whether to earn his PhD in computer science, go into econometrics (computer modeling of economic systems), apply to law school or pursue a medical education. The latter piqued his interest the most, offering a chance to learn the function of different body parts — tied to his longstanding interest in numerical functions in math problems.

Rush was accepted to medical school at the University of Miami, and then did his postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the School of Public Health, as well as his residency in internal medicine in Miami. He blended science and engineering in a newfound expertise. All the while, he remained ahead of the curve, creating one of the earliest search engines and hypertext browsers, using HyperCard on a MacIntosh around 1990 and porting it to Windows in 1992.

The stage was set for a life-changing moment. In the early 1990s, while at Harvard, Rush met Dr. Burton Rose, a world-renowned expert in fluids and electrolytes, kidneys disease and hypertension. They had a bold idea: an online encyclopedia for doctors, with Rose providing the written content and Rush developing the technology and coding.

“My analogy is that I was the Thomas Edison who invented this movie camera and my partner was the Steven Spielberg who knew how to write great screenplays and direct,” Rush says with a chuckle.

The result was, in his description, a Wikipedia for doctors, allowing them to search and locate peer-reviewed articles — all researched by physicians — on myriad illnesses and recommended treatments. They named it UpToDate, and it would grow into a state-of-the-art resource for medical professionals that earned the founders millions. They would eventually sell the rights, while continuing to earn a percentage of fees from the 1.5 million subscribers who pay $500 a year for access. Today, UpToDate is the official education program for all major medical societies.

“We didn’t do this for money — we went into this because we were very interested in giving the best medical care we could to our patients,” Rush says. “And we thought this tool would deliver up-to-date information on a broad scale.”

The groundbreaking program was officially released in 1992, the same year that Rush took a clinical faculty position at the University of Florida. He saw patients and taught medical students in a rural Cross City clinic near Gainesville. There he experienced first-hand the power of his new tool, where he was amazed he was able to manage a complicated endocrine case on site, without the costly need to transfer the child to the university hospital.  

It took two decades of hard work, but eventually, as his earnings from UpToDate grew, so did his philanthropy. “The best advice I ever got from my accountant was not to wait until I’m gone to give all my money away,” he says. “When I looked at my nest egg, I realized I had three times as much as I needed to live out the rest of my life. He told me I could start giving away some of that nest egg now.”

That’s been a very welcome development for WUSF, with Rush’s multiple donations bolstering the station — and benefiting numerous interns as they prepare to populate newsrooms in Florida and beyond.

For the man who loves mathematics, those are the numbers that matter the most.